Falling in love all over again...

with life in the Netherlands.
To backtrack...many years ago, in my student years, I had an hour long commute to my summer internship and job. I had picked up a Teach Yourself Dutch book and cd and became quite proficient at small talk. As I was in Washington, DC I occasionally crossed paths with Dutch speaking persons who were absolutely enamored with my mangling of their native tongue.

The first time I set foot in Europe, I came into Edinborough. You never forget your first, and it was October 2000, and it was magical. It dumped rain and the sky was alive with greys and blues. I was here to deliver training to the European team who had come in from the contintent and everyone treated me so very well. The German gave me a Mozart chocolate and the French speaker and I connected via Spanish as their English was awful. I vowed to return.

I came back for the December holiday season in 2000. I had a route of the 'basic' European countries, doing Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands. Spain was comfortable, like a cousin whom you share enough with (my US Spanish tends to lean toward Central America), and Belgium was friendly and warm. However, Amsterdam was everything and more.

When I had the chance to return to Europe, it ended up being Germany for so long. To escape, I'd drive over the border for the day, either to Belgium or the Netherlands, in particular for my plant purchases in the plentiful Dutch greenhouses.

If you would have given me a choice of anywhere to live before moving to Europe, the Netherlands would have been in the top three. Knowing what I know now after 7+ years here, it would still have a place there.

And before the expats over the border errupt--I realize I have my rose-colored glasses on for this one. I had two European colleagues in Germany who were both property owners in Amsterdam (one Spanish, one Irish), taking advantage of the 10 year tax credit for foreign workers. When asked which they preferred, living in the Netherlands or Germany, both pointed 100% to Germany, which surprised me immensely. Their reasoning: the Dutch tend to be closed communities and can be prejudiced, pompous, and cold. One of them ended up marrying a German, so I guess that clinches the case.

In any event, I still visit the Netherlands when I can swing a trip. This go round, I went to Amersfoort. As the Netherlands was playing Japan in the World Cup, there was plent of orange on display in the windows:

This white cat came out to greet me when I stooped down to get a photo. I was tempted to take it with me, but thought better of it since I still had Berlin and Brussels to go. ;-)

The kind folks of Amersfoort must not get so many tourists. They graciously halted on my side of the street when I shot random photos, like of this 'American' store.

This one--I need to inquire with my Dutch colleagues. I saw a few rucksacks strung up with the flag. My guess is that students had taken or passed exams, but feel free to enlighten me on this one:

Thoughts on Berlin and the German language

Visiting Berlin is always an odd experience for me; I wonder if I had lived in Berlin rather than on the Western side, would I have liked DE more? Visiting there, I see a few things that I find to be universal to DE--old men picking plastic bottles from the garbage bins, students trying to hustle a place on someone's weekend group travel ticket, and the same chains like Rossmans, etc.

The part that always baffles me...when I go to Berlin (and anywhere else in DE) I attempt to live the culture and rough it out in German. In Cologne (near where I was), the constant irritation was that people would switch to poor English, even when my German was passable. I ended up in plently of conversations where the German person was speaking to me in passable English and I was responding in passable German. Back and forth we went, German/English/German/English.

In Berlin, no one ever switches to English with me, we carry on in German. In some ways, this slightly baffles me, as a major city where they get plently of English visitors and obviously English skills are there, why they don't automatically switch over like they do in Koeln.

One theory: my crappy German is an unfamiliar blend in Berlin. In Koeln there are certain words, phrases, and styles of speaking, and a local can pick out an English speaker after very few words. So there is less hesitation to convert to English, because one knows quite clearly that someone is an English speaker.

A colleague had once mentioned to me that it was clear that I had my 'German education' in the Koeln/D'dorf region, just from the words and sentence constructions and speaking style that I used...

A second theory: Another (Cologne based) German colleague had mentioned--the German mentality is that the best foreign speaker should automatically yield. So if a German speaking English and an American speaking German get together, whoever is the better speaker dictates the language of conversation. Often, the Germans speak better English than the English speakers' German. Therefore, the language conversation should be English in these instances. If a super foreign speaker of German is with the German group, then the conversation flow should be in German.

I was at a business meeting at the Ritz Carlton last week. Since it was the Ritz, I was curious to see how good their English was, so when I needed directions to a DM or Rossmans, I asked in English. I thanked her in German and she answered me in German and then looked at me, as if surprised that she had just slipped into German. Their English is of course, quite good, but it seems very 'school-ish' rather than having any actual expereience.

From Berlin to Brussels

I had the opportunity last week to do a professional related activity (endorsed by work but on my own dime...long story). It involved travels between the UK (Stansted), Berlin, Brussels, and Paris.

Since I was doing this on the cheap, I was doing my best to be clever. After much hemming and hawing, I couldn't beat 25 EUR (that includes 1 checked bag + all taxes etc) from Berlin Schoenefeld to Brussels (main airport), on EasyJet.

the ugly? Not sure if you can read the time in the top right corner of the photo--it says 06.02. Yeah, 6 AM I was sitting at the gate. The gate closed around 06.30, so my (tired) self was at S'feld at 05.30, having already checked in online before leaving the UK and just needing to deposit the bag. I was in good company though, with plently of other cost conscious folks on that bright and cheery AM:

From standing into the self-checkin, bag-drop (not check-in desk--and be warned, if you stood in the self-check-in line not having checked in, they sent you over to the 'regular' line) then standing through the security check line, it took about 45 min or so--so plan to be early...

If you must travel between Berlin and Brussels, I don't think you can do it any cheaper. Lufthansa has a much more civilised flight running at 11 AM or so--for 400 EUR one way. You can get clever and book a roundtrip (with the (illegal?) intention of not taking the return trip) for 200 EUR.

Your other option is a 7 hour train ride between Berlin and Brussels. When I was pricing, that was running over 100 EUR and taking 7 hours. The negative on that one--it's a transfer after 5 hours-ish in Koeln, so you cannot get a real night of sleep and substitute it for a hotel night to cost justify it.

There is a final option, to take the later EasyJet flight around 1930. It won't be quite as inexpensive as the early AM, but it will be your second cheapest option.

If you take the early AM EasyJet flight, a few options out to S'feld, check here for the latest options. The train takes just under 30 min and starts around 0500, add on a few minutes to walk from the train station to the airport terminal.

Your other option (my preferred) book a room at the InterCityHotel Berlin-Brandenburg Airport. IF you book in advance, you should find a room around 50 EUR on hrs or expedia or on their own website. You can take the train out on the night before and then take the 10-15 min walk over to the terminal in the morning. Breakfast at the hotel is 12 EUR and it was too early anyway so I skipped it. Internet is charged at some exhorbitant fee so I skipped that too.

There are some superb walking paths if you walk toward 'old S'feld' (follow signage for the Holiday Inn). You can walk many miles on new paths next to fields, quite nice. In addition, the hotel offers free public transport tickets, so you can come out a day early if you'd like, because you can get back into town with their ticket for no cost, if you don't mind the 30 minute train commute. Recommended would be the regional express train rather than the S-bahn.

From the boat - harwich to hook

Travel becoming civilized again...for 53 GBP (63 EUR/78 USD) I get a private room with clean sheets, a hot shower with free shower gel and a full-sized towel, free tv (watching the first eviction from UK Big Brother) and free wireless internet (using my tiny mini pc):

The nice thing about ferry travel is that you can bring whatever food and liquids along which you can carry. After taking my two law exams this week, I'm relaxing this weekend, before gearing up for work stuff in Berlin starting Monday morning. I brought along plenty of food to avoid the overpriced ferry food costs, including strawberries from my garden, a tiny bottle of wine from M&S, and a hunk of cheddar to go with the wine:

If you want to take this trip, book online at Stena, or use their Irish site if you wish to pay in Euros. You'll get a better deal if you book at least a few weeks in advance. On either side (Hook or Harwich), the train station is on site, so it makes it a nice launching point into NL or the UK.

The additional nice thing--check-in for the 23.45 ferry opens around 20.15 and closes around 23.00. So you're free to come at the beginning and to sack out to try and maximize sleep time for the 07.45 NL landing time...or come towards the end to maximize your visit in the UK.

If you're coming via train in the UK, it's easy, take Anglia Rail to Harwich International station.

I have a busy trip coming up--Berlin, Paris and Brussels. I'll give posting a try, where I can find free internet. :-)

the latest from the garden - strawberries

I'm having pretty good luck with strawberries this year. Here's how things have been looking on the balcony. Lapsed time from the first to last photo of this strawberry was around 10 days:

I'm not sure why more people don't grow them in any available space here as the UK weather seems particularly suited for them and they're relatively maintenance free once you get them going.

three years and eight months

is the length of time i need to work in the UK before i can apply for permanent residency here. (it's five years, like in DE). once i have that shiny sticker in my passport, i can then immediately apply for naturalisation, after taking a few additional steps.

while i could speak of the cultural benefits of integrating into a society by holding a passport for it, i imagine the biggest benefit will be for my travel partners...

last night, we came back on the late flight from Bilbao on EasyJet. The late flight which was supposed to arrive back at 22.35 took off 40 minutes late, so we didn't go to Stansted until after 23.00. (Granted, it did allow us an extra glass or two of Spanish wine and time with our friend there, so there are worse places to be delayed.)

Then, I was well in the back of the queue of whatever intra Europe flights were dumping transatlantic passengers into Stansted at that hour...while they had two people to work the desk for a queue of over 100 in front of me, plus at least another 100 who then came after. there were a few additional queues open on the EU side to cover the hundreds arriving there.

in looking around my queue, the passports were a variety of american, canadian, new zealand, japanese, israeli, and indian. i estimate that the average american tourist gets questioned three minutes upon arriving to the UK, nevermind this melting pot of passports where some of the questioning went on for 5-10 minutes.

my EU travel partner waved from the opposite side of the customs gates, he would pick up the baggage and come back....thumbs up.

he waves from the other side with the baggage...yep, i'm still here.

we inches along painfully--and thankfully i didn't need to catch a bus. it was at this point that i started to calculate how long i would need to get a British passport...then i started to calculate in my head the number of weeks....and then number of days.

total time spent in the queue? -->1 hour, 10 min